ww2 AHC: ideal automatic rifle...

Deleted member 1487

If you are trying to do sustained fire from the prone, a top loading magazine beats a conventional one any day.
If you're trying to sustained fire from a magazine weapon, you're doing sustained fire wrong. Autorifles have a role, especially on the attack, but even with small enhancements like magazine placement to enhance change outs from a prone position, it isn't making it a real sustained fire LMG, especially once you factor in the weight issues of magazines vs. belt feeding and the limited ammo carrying capacity of the Bren team (which needs to factor in the weight of the weapon itself) means you're going to lose against a belt fed LMG in sustained fire.

So why not either go belt fed and heavy or light and magazine fed, which means you can shoulder fire for the assault? Smaller caliber bullets like the Swedish 6.5 are lighter per round, so more rounds, smaller magazines, plus the lower recoil can mean a lighter gun if needed. Now a quick change barrel BAR converted to belt feeding in 6.5mm would be a real killer.
 
You familiar with the MAC-10? Wrap the bolt around the rear face of the barrel & shorten the weapon.
Blowback submachine guns rely solely on the mass of the bolt to prevent premature bolt opening. For such weapons a telescoped/overhung bolt offers the benefit of a massive heavy bolt without requiring a huge space behind the breech.
More powerful rifles instead rely on other mechanisms to delay bolt opening, as blowback is impractical. For something like .30-06, 8mmx57 etc with blowback you would need a bolt weighing as much as two complete M1 Garands.
Once you have implemented a locking or delaying bolt with flapper, rollers, rotating lugs, tilt or whatever takes your fancy then there is nothing to be gained by extending the bolt forward, so this feature is only relevant to pistol caliber SMG. Even .30 carbine is probably too powerful for blowback operation since it would take the weight up into battle rifle territory.
 
If you're trying to sustained fire from a magazine weapon, you're doing sustained fire wrong. Autorifles have a role, especially on the attack, but even with small enhancements like magazine placement to enhance change outs from a prone position, it isn't making it a real sustained fire LMG, especially once you factor in the weight issues of magazines vs. belt feeding and the limited ammo carrying capacity of the Bren team (which needs to factor in the weight of the weapon itself) means you're going to lose against a belt fed LMG in sustained fire.
I think there may be some crossed wires in these conversations. True sustained fire is probably not really a concern outside of company-level assets like the machine gun platoon. A ‘light’ role machine gun would typically deliver a few hundred rounds in short bursts of a second or two over a few minutes, regardless of feed type. Whether it’s e.g. a Bren firing 20-round quick-change boxes or a MAG58 firing 50-round slightly slower-changing belts is really not such a big difference. In the assault a Bren is less cumbersome, in defense the MAG58 benefits from being able to join belts, the lighter ammunition hopefully being hauled in slightly greater quantity, and obviously has the ability to switch into proper MMG bullet hose mode if the ammunition supply can hold out. But the carrying capacity of the machine gun team is also less limited than one might think. E.g. as well as what the gunner and No2 carried, every ordinary soldier in a WW2 British squad would be carrying two (or more) Bren magazines. The German squad was generally doing similar but obviously more rounds as belts are lighter.

Long story short - the Bren, chatellerault and similar weapons were perfectly good machine guns that made it all the way into the 1990s as reserve weapons for actual proper first world militaries. The idea that they are somehow ‘not good enough’ for WW2 seems faintly ridiculous to me.
 

Deleted member 1487

Long story short - the Bren, chatellerault and similar weapons were perfectly good machine guns that made it all the way into the 1990s as reserve weapons for actual proper first world militaries. The idea that they are somehow ‘not good enough’ for WW2 seems faintly ridiculous to me.
Again you're not understanding my point: it's not that they were not good enough per se, rather that they were staking out a position between a belt few weapon and a lighter autorifle which made it less desirable than say a 6.5mm caliber autorifle for squad use. A belt fed Bren (or ZB-26) at platoon and company led would have been a highly effective weapon for it's role. It is telling that the Germans wanted to do that with the MG42 by the end of the war: relegate it to a special platoon weapon and equip rifle squads with only assault rifles.
 
You can argue all you like about which is better a belt fed light machine gun or a magazine fed one, what matters is that it fits your tactical deployment. The British with their experience of belt fed medium/heavy MG and magazine fed LMG in the 1World War informed their choice of a top feed magazine fed LMG. one advantage of the magazine fed weapon is that the magazines can be refilled from lose rounds whereas disintegrating belts cannot.
 
Time for a reality check. In the US with a tightwad Congress and the "we just fought the war to end all wars" the possibility of the US Army getting the money to replace the M1903 and the BAR is slim to none in the 1920s. During the Depresision. Yah, right. The US is basically stuck with the BAR due to economic conditions. The UK, the RN and the RAF are first in line for funds. The French are pouring money into the Maginot Line. For both of these the priority for the infantry in all likelyhood (sp) was a primary service rifle. The most inovative designers and ordinance officers are in Czeckoslavia (sp) and possibly Poland IMO. I'm not thinking about the Germans at all.
The advantadges of an intermdiate cartridge had to be obvious to a lot of infantry officers world wide simply from the reduced weight for the same ammunition load or more rounds for the same weight. Plus a lighter rifle to handle the lower power cartridge. But then you had the advocates of long range fire. Unless you are in wide open country enemy troops at 600+ meters aren't going to be easy to see. Sometimes decisions are made for idiotic IMO reasons. A good example is the US dropping the M1917 in favor of the M1903 due to its sights being better suited to 600 yard range qualifications. When the M1917 IMO (and the opinion of others, Gun Jesus for one) was a far better rifle. Other times its just a matter of timing. The British and the .303 Are a good example.
Now for the other thing that bothers me about these discussions. The primary function of military rifles is to allow the taking of human life. And for the most part the men dying are the poor saps who enlisted in peace time for steady pay/rations or to stay out of jail, or some flawed sense of glory. Or the conscripts. The politicians who send them out to kill or be killed for reasons of empire, greed or "national honor". Do we see them putting their ass on the line? Not very often. I admit I can admire the lines and function of a beautifully designed and engineered piece of hardware. But I try to never lose sight of what that hardware was designed for. What its purpose was. And the price payed by the victims and the users of said hardware.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
Blowback submachine guns rely solely on the mass of the bolt to prevent premature bolt opening. For such weapons a telescoped/overhung bolt offers the benefit of a massive heavy bolt without requiring a huge space behind the breech.
More powerful rifles instead rely on other mechanisms to delay bolt opening, as blowback is impractical. For something like .30-06, 8mmx57 etc with blowback you would need a bolt weighing as much as two complete M1 Garands.
Once you have implemented a locking or delaying bolt with flapper, rollers, rotating lugs, tilt or whatever takes your fancy then there is nothing to be gained by extending the bolt forward, so this feature is only relevant to pistol caliber SMG. Even .30 carbine is probably too powerful for blowback operation since it would take the weight up into battle rifle territory.

Well in theory a wrap around bolt would add to chamber strength, and direct gasses forward in the event of a ruptured case, etc, but very minor benefits.

I just wanted to be the Devil's advocate.
 
More powerful rifles instead rely on other mechanisms to delay bolt opening, as blowback is impractical. For something like .30-06, 8mmx57 etc with blowback you would need a bolt weighing as much as two complete M1 Garands.

Schwarz.jpg

Steyr Schwarzlose 1905-18
Caliber: 8x50R
Muzzle velocity 2000 feet/sec
Cyclic rate: 4-500 rpm Delayed blowback
20kg [44 lbs] + tripod 19.9kg [43.8 lbs]
 

Deleted member 1487

How about the FG-42 but chambered in a more suitable caliber? What would've been a better caliber?
6.5mm Mannlicher with better designed bullet (spitzer/boat tail no more than 8 grams):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.5×54mm_Mannlicher–Schönauer

Fit it with the 139 grain Swedish sniper bullet:
6-1.jpg


Steyr Schwarzlose 1905-18
Caliber: 8x50R
Muzzle velocity 2000 feet/sec
Cyclic rate: 4-500 rpm Delayed blowback
20kg [44 lbs] + tripod 19.9kg [43.8 lbs]
Sorry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzlose_machine_gun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(firearms)#Toggle-delayed

It is basically a similar system to a lever or roller delayed blowback rather than an inertia delayed system of an SMG.
 
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If you're trying to sustained fire from a magazine weapon, you're doing sustained fire wrong. Autorifles have a role, especially on the attack, but even with small enhancements like magazine placement to enhance change outs from a prone position, it isn't making it a real sustained fire LMG, especially once you factor in the weight issues of magazines vs. belt feeding and the limited ammo carrying capacity of the Bren team (which needs to factor in the weight of the weapon itself) means you're going to lose against a belt fed LMG in sustained fire.

So why not either go belt fed and heavy or light and magazine fed, which means you can shoulder fire for the assault? Smaller caliber bullets like the Swedish 6.5 are lighter per round, so more rounds, smaller magazines, plus the lower recoil can mean a lighter gun if needed. Now a quick change barrel BAR converted to belt feeding in 6.5mm would be a real killer.

We’re talking about WW2. Belt-fed LMG’s weren’t really a thing yet.
 

Deleted member 1487

We’re talking about WW2. Belt-fed LMG’s weren’t really a thing yet.
MG34 and 42? The ZB26 design was originally a belt fed one, but switched to magazine fed to reduce weight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB_vz._26
In around 1921 the military of the young Czechoslovakian state embarked on a quest for a light machine gun of their own. Early trials included foreign designs such as Berthier, M1918 Browning automatic rifle, Darne machine gun, Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun, Madsen machine gun, St. Étienne Mle 1907, and several domestic designs. Of these, the most important was the Praha II, a lightweight, belt-fed weapon built at Česka Zbrojovka (CZ) Praha (Czech Arms factory in Prague).

Before long, the Holek brothers abandoned the belt feed in favor of a top-feeding box magazine and the resulting weapon, known as the Praha I-23, was selected.

It was basically a choice to save weight and complexity, plus create a mechanism that wouldn't be easily impacted by mud/dirt.

Of course WW2 proved the GPMG concept more right than the magazine fed LMG, though the latter soldiered on post-war due to just being available in huge numbers as a result of the war.
 
MG34 and 42? The ZB26 design was originally a belt fed one, but switched to magazine fed to reduce weight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB_vz._26


It was basically a choice to save weight and complexity, plus create a mechanism that wouldn't be easily impacted by mud/dirt.

Of course WW2 proved the GPMG concept more right than the magazine fed LMG, though the latter soldiered on post-war due to just being available in huge numbers as a result of the war.

Sticking a bipod on an MMG/GPMG does not an LMG make.
 
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